Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits by Red Pine - The writing is a bit dry and disjointed, but it had stories of Chan, Pure Land and esoteric practitioners. Life is a bit rougher for these practitioners than people realize.

Also, the documentary "Amongst White Clouds" which was inspired by Road to Heaven.

How foolish you are, grasping the letter of the text and ignoring its intention! - Vasubandhu

I know that there is a story that Bodhidharma sat facing the wall in meditation for nine years. Please correct this if it is just a story, but I always thought that this had something to do with the reason why Soto Zen practitioners sit facing the wall. So, even though he was not a Soto Zen person, it would seem to have relevance to that tradition.

Yeah Cold Mountain, Pick Up and Big Stick were three buddies that sometimes lived together in one retreat temple but often were on their lonesomes out in the caves and mountains... They all were poets, although Cold Mountain the most prolific, and they inscribed all the poetry we have records of on the sides of cliffs or caves, etc. This one is one of my favorites, -- of Pick Up(Shih-te) -translated by Red Pine-:

For a mud ball dropped in waterbig plans make no sensefor a fragile dreamlike bodya hundred years are rareunable to ponder deeplyand claiming they're immortalpeople steal a ton of goldthen leave it all behind

Contentment is the ultimate wealth;Detachment is the final happiness. ~Sri Saraha